Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Given the recent tragic Germanwinds Flight 4U9525 crash, has
mentally unstable flight crew become the greatest threat of the airline
industry?

By: Ringo Bones

Forget
religious extremists undertaking brazen 9/11 like attacks using airliners it
seems that mentally unstable pilots and flight crew now represent the greatest
threat to the complacency of the airline industry. Although air travel is still
the safest form of travel on an accident per miles traveled basis, rare flukes
like mentally unstable flight crew that the preliminary investigation uncovered
was the cause of the recent tragic Germanwinds Flight 4U9525 crash back in Tuesday, March 24, 2015 where the
co-pilot with alleged mental health issues named Andreas Lubitz was the ongoing
suspect as the cause of the crash when he deliberately locked out the pilot from
the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane on a steep mountainside near Seyne-les-Alpes, France that resulted in
the death of 150 people. As a 25 year old plane, the Germanwings plane that
crashed was an Airbus A320 – the model that’s been a workhorse of the civilian
aviation industry known for its exemplary safety record and reliability.

The only other comparable high-profile pilot suicide /
deliberate crash incident was the findings of the tragic October 31, 1999 crash
of EgyptAir Flight 990 when the plane’s remains was found 0 miles east of
Nantucket Island in the Atlantic Ocean that resulted in the tragic loss of 217
lives. Relief first officer Gameel Al Batouti – a veteran pilot of the 1967 Six
Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War was the prime suspect of the cause of the
crash of the EgyptAir Flight 990.

Rigorous screening of prospective pilots and flight crew may
be the solution but the powers that be at IATA had been warning of a pilot
shortage as early as next year, given that the airline industry had been
expanding at its fastest rate since the 1980s despite of 9/11 and the 2008
global credit crunch. Could the safest form of travel poised to become less
safe?

With the tragic deaths of German children coming back from a
field trip in Spain, the greatest impact of the Germanwings Flight 4U9525
tragedy is probably the Bayreuth Wagner Opera where the lost of bass baritone
Oleg Bryjak and contralto Maria Radner could put a damper to opera fans lining
up to an opera venue with a global prestige where the waiting period for
tickets could be as long as ten years. This is indeed a tragedy of epic
proportions.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Are vintage piston-engine aircraft still airworthy to
operate this day and age given that the gasoline used to power them is no
longer manufactured?

By: Ringo Bones

When Hollywood actor Harrison Ford crash landed his World War II era
vintage trainer Ryan PT-22 Recruit on a Los Angeles golf course back in
Thursday, March 5, 2015, though he suffered gashes on his head and was
described in fair to moderate condition when brought to the Ronald Reagan UCLA
Medical Center. Given the situation could have easily turned tragic, I know
wonder if vintage piston-engine planes are still airworthy to operate given
that the gasoline that was used to fuel them are no longer currently manufactured
by oil companies?

After Clair Cameron Patterson managed to raise awareness of
the dangers of tetraethyl lead in gasoline and the subsequent phase-out of such
fuel additives by the mid 1970s, it meant the death knell of piston engine planes
that are not economically viable enough to be fueled by aviation gasoline whose
octane ratings are boosted by non-lead based additives. This is the primary
reason why the first piston engine plane to become commercially viable enough
to operate by ferrying paying passengers alone – i.e. the Douglas DC-3 –
virtually vanished and was considered extinct by the mid 1980s.

At about the same time of the golden age of aviation – i.e.
civilian barnstorming – during the 1920s, tetraethyl lead was mixed with
gasoline as a patented octane booster that allowed piston engine compression to
be increased substantially which in turn resulted in increased vehicle
performance and fuel efficiency. Sadly, the lead free aviation gasoline
developed after the tetraethyl lead ban – even though good for everyone’s
health - proved to be too corrosive to the piston and combustion chambers of
the piston engines used in the Douglas DC-3 had resulted in the slow death of
these iconic planes that by the mid 1980s, their engines are operated into
destruction with lead free aviation gasoline. Unlike gas turbine engines that
can be fueled with anything that burns – like fake Chanel No. 5 – and will
still run.

Even though the technology is still at its proof of concept
stage, can Tekever’s Brainflight someday allow pilots to fly aircraft via their
thoughts alone?

By: Ringo Bones

Ricardo Mendes, COO of Portugal based drone specialists
Tekever has now become the latest cause célèbre in the tech and aviation world
for demonstrating a system that allows a pilot to control an unmanned drone in
flight via their thoughts alone. Even though the technology is still at its
proof of concept stage, Tekever’s Brainflight has practical implications that go
beyond the drone and aviation world – it could make fully paralyzed individuals
control their wheelchairs using their thoughts alone. But in the short-term,
Tekever is eyeing to market their system that allows individuals with
restricted movement to pilot a plane with the same ease as an able-bodied
individual.

In the long term, the firm said piloting of larger jets,
such as cargo planes, could be controlled this way without the need of crew on
board. However, one aviation expert – John Strickland, an independent aviation
consultant based in London – recently told the BBC that the largely
conservative civil aviation industry would be unlikely to adopt such technology
due to the current perception of Tekever’s Brainflight that the civil aviation
industry sees as potentially unsafe. Mr. Strickland said the airline industry
was instead currently focusing its innovation efforts towards things like
better aircraft construction materials and more economical engines.

Drone specialists Tekever, which works with security firms,
police forces and the military, adopted existing electroencephalography (EEG)
technology so it could issue instructions to the software used to give the
unmanned drone instructions reminiscent of those “neural interface control
networks” featured in late 1990s era episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. EEG works
by detecting activity in specific parts of the brain. After several months of
training, “pilots” are said to be able to teach their brain how to think about
moving a small circle on a computer screen either up or down, which in turn
steers the drone left or right.

“We believe that Brainflight represents the beginning of a
tremendous step change in the aviation field, empowering pilots and de-risking
missions and we’re looking forward to deliver these benefits to the market with
highly innovative products.”- says Ricardo Mendes, chief operating officer of
Tekever. However, similar neural interface control systems have origins that go
back to the early 1970s. Back in 1974, a computer was hooked up to the human
brain via an electroencephalography (EEG) electrode studded skull-cap as an
interface by Lawrence Pinneo of Stanford Research Institute.